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No longer can we wonder that the principle evoking such
longing should be utterly free from shape. The very soul, once it
has conceived the straining love towards this, lays aside all the
shape it has taken, even to the Intellectual shape that has
informed it. There is no vision, no union, for those handling or
acting by any thing other; the soul must see before it neither
evil nor good nor anything else, that alone it may receive the
Alone.
Suppose the soul to have attained: the highest has come to her,
or rather has revealed its presence; she has turned away from all
about her and made herself apt, beautiful to the utmost, brought
into likeness with the divine by those preparings and adornings
which come unbidden to those growing ready for the vision- she
has seen that presence suddenly manifesting within her, for there
is nothing between: here is no longer a duality but a two in one;
for, so long as the presence holds, all distinction fades: it is
as lover and beloved here, in a copy of that union, long to
blend; the soul has now no further awareness of being in body and
will give herself no foreign name, not "man," not "living being,"
not "being," not "all"; any observation of such things falls
away; the soul has neither time nor taste for them; This she
sought and This she has found and on This she looks and not upon
herself; and who she is that looks she has not leisure to know.
Once There she will barter for This nothing the universe holds;
not though one would make over the heavens entire to her; than
This there is nothing higher, nothing of more good; above This
there is no passing; all the rest, however lofty, lies on the
downgoing path: she is of perfect judgement and knows that This
was her quest, that nothing higher is. Here can be no deceit;
where could she come upon truer than the truth? and the truth she
affirms, that she is, herself; but all the affirmation is later
and is silent. In this happiness she knows beyond delusion that
she is happy; for this is no affirmation of an excited body but
of a soul become again what she was in the time of her early joy.
All that she had welcomed of old-office, power, wealth, beauty,
knowledge of all she tells her scorn as she never could had she
not found their better; linked to This she can fear no disaster
nor even know it; let all about her fall to pieces, so she would
have it that she may be wholly with This, so huge the happiness
she has won to.
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